If you’ve had any experience with virtualization software, you’ve probably also heard of VMWare and Virtual PC. I’ve previously used Virtual PC from Microsoft for all my needs and one feature that I really liked was the ability to easily share files and folders between the guest and host operating system.

In Virtual PC, all you had to do in order to share files from the host OS to the guest OS was drag and drop onto the desktop. Super easy. When I switched over to VirtualBox, I realized that sharing folders in VirtualBox is not as simple as dragging and dropping.

This was really annoying to me at first and it took me a little while to figure out exactly how to do it! In this article, I will walk you through the steps for sharing folders between guest and host OS in VirtualBox.

First, you have to install VirtualBox Guest Additions in the guest OS. You can do this by going to Devices and clicking on Install Guest Editions.

Once installed and your guest OS rebooted, you need to create a virtual shared folder. You can do this by going to Devices again and clicking on Shared Folders.

Now click on the Add New Shared Folder button on the right.

In the Folder Path box, click the down arrow and then click Other. Browse to the folder on the host OS that you would like to share with the guest OS. In the Folder Name box, give your share a name. You can choose to make it read-only and to make the shared folder permanent.

Click OK and the new shared folder will show up under Machine Folders if you chose to make it Permanent, otherwise it will show under Transient Folders.

Now click OK to close the Shared Folders dialog. You have to do one more thing in order to be able to actually access the folder on the host OS. Depending on whether the Guest OS is running Windows or Linux (Ubuntu, etc), the method is different.

Windows Guest

In this case, you can either browse to the shared folder by going to My Network Places – Entire Network – VirtualBox Shared Folders or you can map a drive letter to that shared folder. I prefer the second method to make it easily accessible.

I’m running Windows 7 host and XP guest and finally managed to do it – I couldn’t believe it when if finally worked… Somehow it was not easy, even with the great help from reading the explanations here. I kept getting System error 53 and 85 on the command prompt and just when I was about to give up and start looking for another solution (some kind of an online folder), amazingly it worked. Thank you!

After setting shared path, I get error “The virtual machine execution may run into an error condition as described below. We suggest that you take an appropriate action to avert the error. Broken shared folder!” Then it says,

“Details: Error:BrokenSharedFolder
Severity: Warning”

The folder can be accessed properly from Win 7 which is my host OS. Guest OS is Mint Maya. I am a total newbie to Linux and virtual box stuff. Please let me know how this issue can be solved. Thank you.

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Aseem Kishore

Founder of Help Desk Geek and managing editor. He began blogging in 2007 and quit his job in 2010 to blog full-time.

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About Help Desk Geek

Welcome to Help Desk Geek- a blog full of help desk tips for IT Professionals. My name is Aseem Kishore and I work as a Systems Analyst in Dallas, TX. I graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, GA in 2002 with a degree in Computer Science and Mathematics.